Rankings World Trademark Review

Despite its logic and simplicity, Article 18 of the Building (Unified Regulation) Act continues to give rise to interpretative problems in higher court case law. It has not quite found its place alongside Article 1145 of the Civil Code and Article 43 of the Insurance Contracts Act.

Reduced connection charges for electro-intensive consumers and the Fund for the Promotion of Industrial Decarbonization will help improve the industrial sector's competitiveness in the current economic climate.

Although the judgment states that the landlord has three remedies available, in reality he has only one — whether he seeks performance or opts for termination — which is damages.

In its Judgment of 26 February 2026, in Case C-524/23, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that the Kingdom of Belgium has failed to fulfil its obligations under Directive (EU) 2016/1164, by failing to adopt the statutory, regulatory and administrative provisions necessary to ensure taxpayers’ right to a deduction of the tax paid by controlled foreign companies from the corporate income tax liability of the taxpayer.

The Supreme Court rules that the requirement of having at least one full-time employee for an undertaking engaged in real estate leasing to be regarded as carrying on business may be deemed fulfilled by way of an associated company when such is functionally part and parcel of the business activity of the group of companies as a whole.

The Supreme Court applies compensation for loss of chance a second time outside the scope of healthcare liability and goes so far as to compensate cases that would have otherwise remained uncompensated.

Directive (EU) 2026/470 (Omnibus I) has been published, limiting the obligation to prepare a sustainability report to public-interest entities with more than 1,000 employees and a net turnover of more than €450 million during the preceding financial year, as well as to parent companies of a large group that exceed these figures on a consolidated basis. The Directive amends the audit directive, the accounting directive, the corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) and the corporate sustainability due diligence directive (CSDDD).

In Judgment no. 183/2026, of 10 February, the Supreme Court analysed the requirements for the validity and enforceability of an uncertificated registered share pledge and examined the conditions for its avoidance in the context of insolvency proceedings.

This paper analyses the decision of the Mannheim Local Division of 2 October 2025, where the Unified Patent Court (UPC) justifies its jurisdiction on the basis of shipment of products from a UPC territory by company listed as authorized representative in the EC and UK markets as event giving rise to damage. Furthermore, although the applicable law with regard to the infringement of the European patent validated in States that are not party to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court is the national law of those States, with regard to the scope of patent protection, the UPC imposes on the defendant—unduly—the burden of proving the specifics of national law.